About Me

Monday, March 21, 2016

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish philosopher known
for his treatise on “invisible hand” welfare effect of the market system. He
was the author of two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and
The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Smith and David Ricardo, along with the earlier thinker
John Locke, were considered the “Fathers” of classical liberal philosophy and
political economy.

Jovito R. Salonga (1920-2016) was a top-caliber Filipino
lawyer, legislator, statesman, and civil society leader. With a string of law
degrees (Bachelor, Masters, Doctorate) from the University of the Philippines,
Harvard Law School and Yale University, and string of top notch victory in
three Senatorial elections (1965, 1971, 1987).

There are some similarities in the ideas and writings of
Adam Smith and Senator Salonga, especially on the role and purpose of
government.

In the famous work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book
IV, Chapter IX, Adam Smith argued towards the end that individual freedom in
pursuit of personal happiness and advancement should be respected, and
government should be lean and minimal, its function is focused or limited to
protect such individual freedom from violence (local or foreign) and injustice,
and to secure public goods like infrastructures.

In Paragraph 51 of Chapter IX, Smith wrote,

“Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of
justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to
bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other
man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in
the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable
delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge
could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private
people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the
interest of the society.

“According to the system of natural liberty, the
sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance,
indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of
protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent
societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member
of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or
the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the
duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public
institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small
number of individuals, to erect and maintain...”

In a public lecture at UP Diliman on “Good Government,”
July 3, 1962, Sen. Salonga argued that an important function of government is
to guarantee a minimum standard of social without sacrificing individual
freedom for personal advancement. He wrote,

“(T)he preservation of a minimal standard of order is
basic in any organized society; without order, one cannot enjoy the essentials
of life with some kind of assurance that someone will not deprive him by force
of it. But too much stress on order may mean the dissipation of freedom -- the
freedom to pursue our respective occupations, the freedom to trade and engage
in business, the freedom to inquire and to know, the freedom to seek truth
according to our best lights, the freedom to speak and to worship and to
believe. Law, then, in a free society of tree men is a system of reconciliation
-- the reconciliation of order with liberty, and it is for this reason that I
defined law earlier as a system of ordered liberty, a system where there is
security and where individual dignity and worth is recognized.

A Good Government, therefore, seeks to achieve order with
freedom, security with human dignity. And at the very least, human dignity
means a more equitable distribution of the basic values and goods of society
wealth and power, knowledge and respect.”

On the rule of law and not rule of men, the good Senator
wrote,

“It is often said that in a democracy the government is
one of laws and not of men. The meaning is that the mighty and the weak should
be under the law, with equal rights and equal protection. Justice is blind,
without regard to whether one is poor or lowly. This is all fine and good,
except for the fact that laws are made by men, interpreted by men, and
administered by men. And as long as this is so, justice cannot be blind.”

When he retired from politics after he lost in the
presidential elections in 1992, Sen. Salonga turned his sights on civil society
work. In his Ramon Magsaysay Award Lecture, Aug.30, 2007, he wrote,

“After one term as a congressman and three terms as a
senator, I retired from partisan politics in 1992 -- indeed I am no longer an
active member of the Liberal Party, since my active involvement in civil
society. I founded and organized Kilosbayan in 1993, mainly to arouse public
interest and participation in important questions of public policy, in light of
the right of the people to their own governance and on the basis of civilized
norms of morality, justice, truth and ethics.

“On Recto Day, Feb. 8, 2000, ex-Secretary of Justice and
ex-Ambassador Sedfrey A. Ordoñez and I founded and organized Bantay Katarungan,
an NGO, to help improve and modernize our system of justice in the Philippines,
with the help of young students of idealism and competence from the best law
schools in Metro Manila...”

The good senator was known for advancing the rule of law,
of having a well-functioning administration of justice, and not for advancing
populism and welfarism, entitlement and citizen-dependence on the state. He was
the principal author of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for
Government Workers, the law defining plunder as a crime, many others.

That makes him a cut above the average or almost all
current breed of politicians and legislators, even among many NGOs and civil
society leaders.

There are many things, many social measures and actions
that can be done by self-reliant citizens and independent civil society
organizations and do not need legislation and national coercion. That is the
implicit message of the Senator when he and his friends formed KilosBayan
(Citizens Action) and Bantay Katarungan (Sentinel of Justice).

Adam Smith has re-ignited the ideals of citizen
self-reliance, freedom and responsibility, and limited government focused on
securing the rule of law, two and a half centuries ago. Senator Salonga
supported those ideals half century ago. Thank you, Sir.

We still have to find that new breed of politicians in
the country who can follow the intellectual persuasion and integrity stamina of
the Senator. Politicians who are not using political populism and welfarism to
bribe voters’ support and instead, highlight the important role of having the
rule of law in protecting citizens self-reliance, entrepreneurship and
innovation, their private property and their right to liberty and
self-expression.

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the head of Minimal
Government Thinkers, a Fellow of the South East Asia Network for Development
(SEANET), and a member of the Economic Freedom Network (EFN) Asia. All three
entities support the philosophy of classical liberalism in politics and
economics.